The problem is Trump had spent Thursday seemingly defending the controversy-courting quote as a serious accusation in multiple interviews.

"I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do," Trump said. "He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton."

This is not the first time Trump has used sarcasm to dodge the fallout from his own incendiary comments. Here are 5 more times Trump said he was just joking:

1. The Baby

Earlier this month, Trump was holding a press conference when a baby started crying in the audience. At first, Trump urged the mother, who was apparently holding the baby, not to worry about the crying.

"Don't worry about. It's young and beautiful and healthy and that's what we want," Trump said.

Less than a minute later, though, Trump said that the mother should take the baby out of the room, seemingly mocking her for thinking he was ok with a baby crying while he was speaking.

"I think she really believed me," Trump said.

The media, as well as a large portion of the public on social media, criticized Trump for shaming the mother, but Trump insisted that everyone in the room understood he meant his comments in jest.

2. Russia

During a July campaign stop following the news that the FBI suspected Russian intelligence agencies in the DNC email hack that led to the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Trump made an odd request.

“Russia—if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump told reporters, referencing the missing State Department emails Clinton allegedly deleted from her personal server. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

The idea that a U.S. politician would be inviting a foreign power to wade into the presidential election and attack a political rival shocked many in the media and the public, but the GOP nominee said he was not being serious.

Throughout his entire career, dating back well before his presidential bid, Donald Trump has drawn controversy for potentially demeaning comments towards women, calling various women "disgusting," "fat pigs" and rating the attractiveness of many women on a number scale. His feud with Fox News' Megyn Kelly began because the journalist grilled the eventual nominee about those comments during the first Republican primary debate.

Trump says those comments were all in good fun.

"Well, number one, I’m no different than anybody else, and people joke, and I joke," Trump said in a phone interview with Wisconsin's Fox 11 in March. "And I never knew I was going to be running for office. And you joke, and you kid and say things, but you’re not a politician so you never think anybody cares. All of a sudden you decide because the country’s doing so badly that you’re going to run for office, and then they take every single thing that you’ve ever said over a lifetime."

4. Bernie Debate

When it was becoming clear that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was unlikely to catch Clinton in the Democratic primary race, Sanders tried an unusual Hail Mary to garner support — he challenged Trump to a debate during an appearance on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" To the surprise of many, Trump accepted the challenge while appearing on the same show later that week, telling Kimmel "it would have such high ratings."

But it was not meant to be. The following day, after much blowback, Trump changed his mind and said he was only joking.

5. 'Second Amendment People'

This one is not actually a case of Trump himself saying he was joking, but rather other Republicans explaining Trump's statements away by calling them sarcastic. Trump maintains that his remarks at a North Carolina Tuesday about how "Second Amendment people" could stop Hillary Clinton from instituting gun control, which many took as a suggestion of violence against Clinton or others, was a serious and earnest nod to a unified voting bloc of guns rights supporters.

"Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment," Trump said. "By the way, and if she gets to pick — if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is. I don't know."

But many critics have argued that, based on Trump's wording, his hypothetical assumes what would happen after a Clinton win in the election, ruling out the idea that his comments were a reference to voter turnout. So, some GOP leaders, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, instead chose to write the comments off as a joke.

"I heard about this Second Amendment quote. It sounds like just a joke gone bad. I hope he clears it up very quickly. You should never joke about something like that," Ryan told reporters Tuesday.